Journey Sem1 BOOKLET - Wikispacesyear11vce-english.wikispaces.com/file/view/JourneyBoo… · Web viewIt can be anything that you connect with the word ‘journey’. ... working

Context: THE JOURNEY

Robert Frost “The Road Not Taken”

(1) Personal Writing (Assessed SAC):A personal journey(2) Short Answer Questions (not assessed formally, but essential for SAC essay):Outline the character journeys from Frost, Kelly and Shaw’s writing.(3) Expository Writing (Assessed SAC):“The journey is more important than the destination.”

Semester One

George Bernard ShawPygmalion

Paul KellyLyrics

Unit developed by Susanne Haake and Karen Lenk

Table of Contents

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Pages

INTRODUCTION TO CONTEXT:The Journey PowerPoint Slides 3-5Personal Journey Brainstorm Page 6The River of Life Metaphor 7Notes Page 8Guiding Questions 9

TEXT ONE:Robert Frost Biography 10“The Road Not Taken” 11“The Road Not Taken” Analysis 12-13

TEXT TWO:Paul Kelly Biography 14-16Analysing Music Lyrics 17Glossary 18“Wintercoat” 19“To Her Door” 20“Before Too Long” 21“Deeper Water” 22“Sweet Guy” 23“Dumb Things” 24“Look So Fine, Feel So Low” 25“Everything’s Turning To White” 26“From Little Things Big Things Grow” 27-28

TEXT THREE:The Pymalion Myth 29George Bernard Shaw Biography 30Pygmalion Plot Summary 31Pygmalion Character explanation 32Pygmalion Characters 33Pygmalion Study Questions 34Pygmalion Discussion Questions 35

ASSESSMENT:Assessment Task Outline 36Performance Descriptors 37

THE JOURNEY – PowerPoint Slide Notes

At some stage in everyone’s life a person will embark on a significant journey.

A journey may be: PHYSICAL INNER IMAGINARY

It may be with others or it is often done on your own.A journey produces some form of effect on those who are involved in it.

A journey leaves those involved fundamentally altered in some way.

A journey can be: a product (noun) or a process (verb)In other words – a trip to a place (product) or examining how a person went about their

journey (process) and how they develop as it progresses.

A journey can be a physical movement that has some significance for those who are involved.

A journey can involve no movement at all and can be a purely internal process that is the result of some significant event.

A journey can be entirely imaginative and be solely the result of the creative vision of the composer.

The word journey suggests movement.This movement may be: PHYSICAL EMOTIONAL SPIRITUAL

The notion of CHALLENGE or ADVENTURE is associated with The Journey.

The journey is a particular kind of travelling, a slow rumination (hurry slowly) applied. The dissatisfaction we find in our lives may be an important force in motivating the

journey. Dissatisfaction can lead to questioning. The journey to knowledge may lead to self-

knowledge.Unexpected insights may occur during one’s journey.

The individual may ultimately reflect on one’s journey.

Symbols in The Journey may include:The riverThe roadA wave

A mountainA bicycle

A labyrinth

Symbolic choices or obstacles in The Journey may include: A fork in the road

Two paths A crossroad

A bridge

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Proverbs about The Journey:Travel broadens the mind.

To travel is a better thing than to arrive. The crow went travelling abroad and came back just as black.

He that travels knows much.A person who never travels never grows up.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao Tzu, Chinese Philosopher

Musicians speak about The Journey: My music is about the journey, about love and the human experience. - Wynonna Judd Each song is a lifetime, it begins and ends, and there’s a journey taken within the songs. - Leif

Garrett The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey. - Enya

There is no formula to it. Writing every song is a little journey. The first note has to lift you. - Enya

Without music, life is a journey through a desert. - Pat ConroyThe truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time. - David

Bowie

Writers write about The Journey:

Our lessons come from the journey, not the destination. - Don Williams Jnr.

It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end. - Ursula LeGuin

At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. - Yukio Mishima

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip

takes us. - John Steinbeck

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. - Marcel Proust

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You will be expected to compose your own original piece of writing based on The Journey Context.

It could be personal, imaginative or creative.

An intelligent piece should consider both: Literal (external) Metaphorical (internal) Journeys

Your piece should:Establish the status quo

Outline the impetus for the journeyDescribe the preparation for the journey

Stopping points and events should be described in the journey.

Your piece should:Use symbols

Reflect on these incidencesReflect on pauses in the journey

Your piece should also:Mention others in your journey

Include mentorsInclude people you meet along the wayInclude interesting distracting people

Include possible or real villains

The protagonistReflect on their impact on the protagonist

Include obstacles or problems encountered along the way.Reflect on the impact these have on the protagonist.

Confront your protagonist with choices.Make decisions during The Journey.

Arriving at your destinationHave you ended up in a different place?

How different is this a place from where you started?

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Reflect on the nature of the journey.How has the protagonist changed?

A journey presents new ways of looking and seeing.At your destination reflect on The Journey as a whole.

Was all anticipated?What were the unexpected joys and miseries?

What has the protagonist gained from The Journey?

What kinds of Personal Journeys can people go on?

With your class or in a group, make a concept map of the different sorts of journeys that people go on in life. It can be anything that you connect with the word ‘journey’. You may use your own experiences to help here – and you may later use some of these ideas as inspiration when writing your own personal journey piece.

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PersonalJourneys

The River of Life – a metaphor for a journey

Have you ever thought about the personal journey of your own life? Look for a few minutes at the image below. Think about your own personal journey. What if you were to represent your life journey as a river?

- Has it always been a smooth ride? - Have there been any rapids, rocks, waterfalls?- What is the shape of the river?- Has it ever taken any unexpected turns?

Draw a river to represent your life journey. Label it with key words and phrases that describe different times in your journey. You may focus on your whole life or just one part if you prefer.

Your teacher may ask you to share your river with a partner or the class.

How would your journey be differently expressed if you used a road instead of a river? Which is moreappropriate for you? Why do you believe some people would choose a road as their metaphor?

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Discussion, notes, brainstorming for ideas

There have been moments in everyone’s lives that the exploration of one’s self has been necessary.

Perhaps in a paired discussion with others in your class, explore moments of inner journey. Change pairs several times to extend discussion.

Use the following points for focus: Mind and spirit Exploration of the self Individual growth and development Challenge and inspiration.

Write some notes below that may assist you in writing your own personal journey piece.

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Guiding Questions – Short Answer Responses

When you approach the texts in this collection, answer the questions below. They may help you to unpack some of the ideas related to ‘personal journeys’.

1. What kind of journeys does this text show? (There may be more than one journey for a character. There may even be several journeys for several characters)

2. What kind of event or change prompted/started each of the journeys in this text?

3. What helped or hindered the progression of the journey?

4. What changes occurred to the characters as result of the journey and how did it affect them in the long/short term? What did they learn? What did the audience learn?

5. What does this text say about the exploration of self and an individual’s growth and development? Include at least four quotations per text in each response.

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Semester One:

(1) “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

(2) Lyrics by Paul Kelly

(3) Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Robert FrostRobert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California is 1874. His father died from tuberculosis when Robert was ten years old. His father had passed on values such as his capacity to endure and never give up to his young son. His mother was a teacher and Robert gained a love and appreciation for literature.

Dropping out of business studies at university, Frost travelled around the countryside taking any job available; as a janitor, mill worker, newspaper writing and occasionally teaching. He married an old school friend in 1895, and decided to try university studies again. He dropped out once more and took up farming; a job for which he had no training.

While farming, he commenced writing poetry, then after ten years he sold the farm and took up teaching. Shortly after he and his wife moved to rural England where he continued to write poems and establish friendships with a number of English poets at the time, including Ezra Pound and Rupert Brooke. From these friends his poetry received the recognition needed to have his work finally published. In 1915 he and his family were forced to return to the United States because of the First World War, but he was now recognized more widely because of his English publications. Over the years he was granted teaching posts at various universities in the United States.

In 1963 he died at the age of 89. Most of his poetry focused on rural scenes.

Features of Robert Frost’s Poetry

1. Simple LanguageAt a time when poetry was becoming more complex, often requiring readers to have some knowledge of Latin, French or Greek, Frost’s work was striking for its simplicity of language. It is natural and effortless and makes many of the lines of his poems ‘quotable’.

2. Nature as the subjectThe predominant subject matter of Frost’s poetry is nature. He observes and records: woods, fences, birds, animals, tress, fruit, leaves – the entire countryside. He connects this with the concept that nature reveals the deeper realities of life, and Frost reflects upon this idea.

3. Symbolism is subtleA crumbling stone fence may be a symbol of a division between people. Two paths diverging may represent choices we face in life and the destiny that follows the choice. The symbolism is never forced.

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The Road Not Taken

A poem about making choices on life’s journey.This poem examines the difficulty that always attends making a choice between two options. It gently satirises his friend Edward Thomas’ inability to make a decision and at the same time to be confident that it was the right one. It also reflects Frost’s real-life experience in England in 1912 when, out walking after a winter storm, he met a man very much like his mirror image at a lonely crossroad and watched, mute, as he passed by. Frost poetically transformed the experience on converging roads to the speaker’s experience of diverging roads. It was reputedly one of Frost’s favourite poems.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveller, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less travelled by,And that has made all the difference.

1. What kind of journey does this poem discuss?What prompted the beginning of this journey?

2. What helped or hindered the progression of this journey?3. What did the author learn from this journey?4. Choose a quotation that encapsulates the message of ‘the journey’ in this poem.

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The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

."The Road Not Taken" is a lyric poem with four stanzas of five lines each. (A lyric poem presents the feelings and emotions of the poet rather than telling a story or presenting a witty observation.) The language is simple enough for a child to read, but the meaning is complex enough to foster scholarly debates and long essays. Frost sets the poem on a forest road on an autumn morning. He received inspiration for the poem from the landscape in rural Gloucestershire, England..

The Text Interpretation

1 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;1

1 On the road of life, the speaker arrives at a point where he must decide which of two equally appealing (or equally intimidating) choices is the better one. He examines one choice as best he can, but the future prevents him from seeing where it leads.

2 Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim,2 Because it was grassy and wanted wear;3 Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

2 The speaker selects the road that appears at first glance to be less worn and therefore less travelled. This selection suggests that he has an independent spirit and does not wish to follow the crowd. After a moment, he concludes that both roads are about equally worn.

3 And both that morning equally lay, In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

3 Leaves cover both roads equally. No one on this morning has yet taken either road, for the leaves lie undisturbed. The speaker remains committed to his decision to take the road he had previously selected, saying that he will save the other road for another day. He observes, however, that he probably will never pass this way again and thus will never have an opportunity to take the other road.

4 I shall be telling this with a sigh4 Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

4 In years to come, the speaker says, he will be telling others about the choice he made. While doing so, he will sigh either with relief that he made the right choice or with regret that he made the wrong choice. Whether right or wrong, the choice will have had a significant impact on his life.

Notes1..The road beyond the bend may represent the future or the unknown, ....neither of which can be perceived. 2..Here, Frost uses personification, saying that the road has a claim. 3..Personification occurs here also if wanted means desired. No ....personification occurs, however, if wanted means lacked. 4..Sigh can indicate relief or happiness, or it can indicate regret or ....sorrow. The interpretation of its meaning is up to the reader.

Which Is the Road Not Taken?You may have noticed that the title of the poem can refer to either road. Here's why: The speaker takes the road "less travelled" (line 19). In other words, he chooses the road not taken by most other travellers. However, when he chooses this less-travelled road, the other road then becomes the road not taken.

ThemesIndividualism: The speaker chooses to go his own way, taking the “road less travelled” (line 19).

Caution: Before deciding to take the "road less travelled" (line 19), the speaker takes time to consider the other road: "long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could" (lines 3-4).

Commitment: The speaker does not have second thoughts after making his decision. Accepting a Challenge: It may be that the road the speaker chooses is less travelled because it presents trials or

perils. Such challenges seem to appeal to the speaker.

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Source: Cummings Study Guide http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/RoadNot.html

The Road Not Taken - Concepts to consider

Poetic techniques The sense of drama added to the first stanza by Frost’s concentration of monosyllables and by

the thoughtful placement of particular words. The sparse but strong visual images: the two roads, the yellow wood, the leaf-strewn tracks.

They provide a physical setting, a touchstone to reality against which the speaker’s musings can take place.

The tonal quality of the poem; the sighs. The contribution made by end rhyme and assonance to the meaning of the poem.

Themes The difficulty which often attends making life’s choices and the agony of ambivalence. The persistent sadness of regret. The fine, and often inexplicable, choices that shape our lives. Nature’s delight in mysteries and in humankind’s mental and emotional discomfit. Life’s continual testing of our faith in ourselves. The sadness and uncertainties which are inevitable when an individual is not the master of their

own mind.

Questions: Stanza One1. How is visual power created in the first image of this poem?2. What impact is created from the placement of ‘sorry’?3. What impact is created by the syntax of ‘long I stood’?3. What role does the enjambment play?4. How does nature participate in the teasing of the speaker’s thoughts?

Questions: Stanza Two:This records the speaker’s separation of the roads by the operation of his will. “Then took the other” hastens the metre of the poem – as if to suggest perhaps the speaker made his choice hurriedly in the end, tired of the mental dilemma with which he is presented. His rationalization of his choice occupies the remainder of the second stanza. 1. What is the dominating tone of this stanza?2. What statements in this stanza are full of contractions?

Questions: Stanza Three:This rejects the tenuous distinction drawn between the two roads by the speaker in stanza two. Both roads were pristine in their autumn cloak untrodden and therefore undamaged. Note how in line fourteen the repetition of ‘way’ produces an auditory enactment of the progress of the speaker’s physical journey. 1. What is the effect of the image of black leaves?2. Explain the tone of line three – what does it suggest?

Questions: Stanza Four:The speaker ruminates on the future importance to him of this choice. Again his sigh is foremost. The option necessarily discarded is the basis of future regret. His imagined future remembrances is cloaked in mystery and vagueness as to its own time and place; both the use of ‘somewhere’ and ‘ages and ages’ reinforces this. His future recounting of the choice forced upon him will not identify with any greater clarity the reasons for the option taken. It will merely record its consequence – “that has made all the difference”.1. Are the doubts and regrets of the past to be eventually resolved?

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http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/RoadNot.html

2. Is the ‘difference’ made positive or negative? What key to the answer to this question is provided by the tone of the last two lines of the poem?

Paul Kelly

'Lyrics' opens with a quote from Anton Chekhov: 'I don't have what you would call a philosophy or coherent world view so I shall have to limit myself to describing how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die and speak.' It's a viewpoint Kelly has stressed over the years. 'I'd like to make clear that my records aren't autobiography,' he once said. 'I'm not trying to tell my life and my experiences. The first thing I'm trying to do is write songs, rather than make confessions or bare my soul.'

The sixth of nine children, Paul Kelly was born in Adelaide in 1955 and attended a Christian Brothers School, where he played trumpet and captained the cricket team. After school he wandered around Australian for a few years, working odd-jobs and picking up a guitar along the way. He made his public debut singing the Australian folk song 'Streets Of Forbes' to a Hobart audience in 1974, and two years later moved to Melbourne, where the thriving pub-rock scene was being transformed by a surge of punk adrenaline. Paul Kelly and The Dots quickly became

a local fixture, a hard-driving guitar band whose two albums, TALK and MANILA, reflected a talent still in gestation.

The break-up of the Dots in 1982 precipitated a fallow period during which Kelly was without a record contract. But moving to Sydney in 1984 helped break the spell; with a handful of cohorts such as guitarist Steve Connolly and bass player Ian Rilen, Kelly spent $3500 recording POST over a two week period at Clive Shakespeare's recording studio. The album was a loosely structured song-cycle which followed a character's transition from dissolution (White Train, Blues For Skip) through nostalgic longing (Adelaide, Standing On The Street Of Early Sorrows) to a final note of resolution (Little Decisions). The aching melodies and bittersweet tone of these 11 songs, along with their unapologetically Australian reference-points, marked a major leap in Kelly's songwriting. Australian Rolling Stone hailed POST as the best record of 1985.

By then Kelly was back in action with a full-time band consisting of Steve Connolly, drummer Michael Barclay, bass player Jon Schofield and keyboard player Peter Bull. Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls ('a joke name that stuck') went into the studio with producer Alan Thorne in March 1986, emerging a month later with the remarkable double album GOSSIP, a collection of 24 songs which cemented Kelly's reputation as a songwriter with few peers. The range of material was again extremely broad, from the undulating electric piano groove introducing Last Train To Heaven to the rock-out raunch of the single Darling It Hurts, in which the son's protagonist sees his girlfriend turning tricks on a Sydney street. Three tunes from POST were re-recorded with the full band, while Maralinga (Rainy Land) - a song recounting the effects of British atomic testing on South Australian Aborigines - was the first of several Kelly songs chronicling the stories of indigenous Australians.

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Edited down to a 15 song single album, GOSSIP was also the record which introduced Kelly to American audiences when it was released by A&M Records in July 1987. Bill Flanagan of Musician magazine described it as 'striking' and commended the songwriter for his 'fresh ideas and startling images'. By now Kelly and the band were road-hardened and ready, having played 150 Australian gigs in on eight-month period. In May 1987 they returned to the studio with Alan Thorne to record UNDER THE SUN, a collection of 14 new Kelly originals. After changing their name to Paul Kelly and the Messengers, the band headed out on a maiden venture into the US which saw them traverse the continent twice in two months by bus. 'Mr Kelly sang one smart, catchy three minute song after another - dozens of them - and the band played with no frills directness,' wrote New York Times rock critic Jon Pareles after their performance at the Bottom Line Club in New York.

The 1989 album SO MUCH WATER, SO CLOSE TO HOME complete a transition that had been evident on UNDER THE SUN, as Kelly's writing on songs such as Sweet Guy and South of Germany moved towards a narrative style populated by more fully-realised characters. Both the album's title and the song Everything's Turning To White were based on a short story by the American author Raymond Carver, a master of pared-down prose. Produced by American Scott Litt, who had worked with R.E.M., SO MUCH WATER also had a more stripped-back musical sound.

Despite the critical acclaim they had earned and the camaraderie evident in their live performances, Kelly and the Messengers dissolved their partnership in 1991 after on final album, COMEDY. Again recorded by Alan Thorne in Sydney, the album was a 14 song collection which included the droll I Can't Believe We Were Married and a song co-written with Aboriginal songwriter Kev Carmody, From Little Things Big Things Grow, which recounted the eight-year struggle for land by the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory.

An Australian tour in 1991 marked the final appearances of Paul Kelly and the Messengers, whose swan-song was HIDDEN THINGS, a compilation of 18 rarities and B-sides recorded over the previous six years. The album included several cover versions - Reckless by James Reyne, Pastrure's Of Plenty by Woody Guthrie, Elly by Kev Carmody - and two new Kelly originals, When I First Met Your Ma and Rally Round The Drum, which was co-written with Aboriginal songwriter Archie Roach.

'The Messengers were the first band I'd had that became an entity,' recalls Kelly. 'We forged a style together. But I felt if we had kept going it would have got formulaic and that's why I broke it up. I wanted to try and start moving into other areas, start mixing things up.'

Kelly had made the first steps towards 'mixing things up' when he worked with Archie Roach and the Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi in 1991. An early fan of Roach's, he co-produced the singer-songwriter's acclaimed debut album 'Charcoal Lane' with Steve Connolly. The Yothu Yindi connection came on a trip to the Northern Territory when Kelly collaborated with the group on 'Treaty', the song that became a surprise pop hit when it was remixed as a dance single.

A flurry of diverse projects followed over the next two years. Kelly's songs began to appear more regularly on albums by other artists, both here and overseas. Having honed his skills as a solo performer, he recorded two concerts in Perth and Melbourne for the double-CD set of LIVE, MAY 1992, featuring 22 songs performed with the stark accompaniment of just his own guitar and piano. In early 1992 he was invited to write songs for 'Funerals and Circuses' a Roger Bennett play about racial tensions in small-town Australia. The play was acclaimed by critics when it was staged at the 1992 Adelaide Festival, and also marked Kelly's acting debut in the role of a petrol station attendant. Later that year he signed a contract with publishers Angus and Robertson for a book of his collected lyrics, contributed songs and vocals to the soundtrack of the television series 'The Seven Deadly Sins' and sang a duet with Mark Seymour - 'Hey Boys' - for the film 'Garbo'.

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In 1993 Kelly moved to Los Angeles for nine months, where he began playing with an assortment of Australian and American musicians, including Detroit-born guitarist Randy Jacobs. In Los Angeles he also produced a new album for Australian singer Renee Geyer, 'Difficult Woman'. Returning to Australia later in the year, he collaborated with singer Christine Anu and Angelique Cooper on 'Last Train', the dance remix of his 1986 song Last Train To Heaven which was heard all summer long on Triple J.

The book 'Lyrics', which collected Kelly's song lyrics written from 1984-1993, was published in September. Reviewing it in the Melbourne Age, poet and critic John Forbes described the songs as 'passionate, direct and forceful'. Kelly subsequently went into the studio with former Black Sorrows singers Vika and Linda Bull to produce their debut album. He then completed work on his tenth WANTED MAN, which featured 14 songs recorded in Australia and the U.S. with co-producers Randy Jacobs and David Bridie. The album had a funkier feel reflected in both its earthy lyrics (Just Like Animals, She's Rare) and the more overtly black rhythms of songs like We've Started A Fire and the pop-soul single Song From The Sixteenth Floor.

In 1994, Kelly recorded the mainly instrumental soundtrack for 'Everynight....Everynight', a feature film directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos which is set in the notorious H Division of Pentridge Jail in the 1970s. The film made its debut in June 1994 at the Melbourne Film Festival. Later that year, Kelly began playing with a Melbourne-based group of musicians that included Randy Jacobs, guitarist Shane O'Mara, drummer Peter Luscombe, bassist Stephen Hadley, keyboard player Bruce Haymes and pedal steel player Graham Lee.

Over a nine month period they also recorded the 12 songs released in early 1996 as DEEPER WATER, an album which explored the more mature concerns of a songwriter approaching his 40th birthday and wrestling with issues of fatherhood and mortality. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, critic Mark Mordue said the album secured Kelly's reputation as songwriter and evinced an 'unusual intensity and warmth.' Kelly dedicated the album to his old confrere Steve Connolly, who had died the year before from unexpected medical complications following an operation.

Throughout this period Kelly continued to tour as a live performer throughout Europe, Canada, the US and Australia, playing solo or with musicians such as guitarists Spencer Jones and Shane O'Mara. By early 1996 a permanent band had coalesced around O'Mara, Haymes, Luscombe and Hadley (the latter two formerly with the Black Sorrows), with Spencer Jones a semi-permanent fixture. After a national tour to promote DEEPER WATER, the band recorded several songs which were released as the four-track EP How To Make Gravy in late 1996. In early 1997 they recorded a new single, Tease Me/It Started With A Kiss, and began rehearsals for Paul Kelly's twelfth album of new material, to be released later that year. A long-awaited retrospective compilation, the 20-song SONGS FROM THE SOUTH: PAUL KELLY'S GREATEST HITS, was released in June 1997.

Reflecting on more than two decades of songwriting and performing, Kelly told an interviewer recently that songwriting remained a painstaking process, and he often felt like sinking to his knees in thanks when a song came to him. 'Songwriting to me is mysterious,' he said. 'I still feel like a total beginner. I don't feel like I have got it nailed yet.'

June 1997

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Analysing Music Lyrics

1. Dramatic situation

1.1 Who is the speaker? 1.2 To whom is he or she speaking? What is the situation?

2. Summary

2.1 Write a one to three sentence summary of the song, include both explicit and implicit meanings. (This exercise should help you focus in on the central idea of the song.)

3. Figurative language

3.1 Point out any examples of personification, simile, metaphor, metonymy, or allusion. Explain (briefly) how these examples contribute to (or fail to contribute to) the effectiveness of the song.

4. Literary techniques

4.1 Point out and explain any symbols.4.2 Point out and explain any examples of paradox, overstatement, understatement, or irony.

5. Prosody

5.1 What is the rhyme scheme?5.2 Point out examples of assonance, alliteration. Explain (briefly) why these examples are or are not effective.

6. Overview

6.1 What is the subject of the song? (What is its central focus?)6.2 What is the theme of the song? (What does the song tell you about the subject?) Explain why the theme is universal or topical.6.3 What personal insights, feelings, or comments do you have about the poem?

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GlossaryThe following terms maybe helpful to you when discuss lyrics.

Alliteration – The repetition of consonants at the beginning of words which occur close to one another in text.

Allusion – A reference to a historical, literary or mythological event, person or place.

Assonance – The repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in words which are close to one another in text.

Irony – The use of a statement whose form or tone indicates a meaning contrary to its apparent or stated meaning.

Metaphor – A figure of speech which suggests a comparison or resemblance between two things by identifying one with another.

Mood – The feeling or atmosphere of a literary work.

Motif – A recurring object, concept or structure which helps emphasise what the author is trying to express.

Paradox – A statement which appears to contradict itself but which contains a truth.

Personification – A figure of speech in the form of a metaphor in which things or abstract ideas are treated as if they are human.

Pun – A play on words in which two meanings for a single word are emphasized for comic effect.

Repetition – The act of repeating words, phrases or lines.

Rhyme – The use of words with the same sounds, particularly at the end of lines of poetry, in order to create an echoing or patterned effect.

Simile – A type of metaphor which directly and explicitly compares one thing to another, always using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’.

Symbol – A type of figurative language or metaphor in which one thing stands for or represents another.

Tone – The feeling or atmosphere of a text conveyed by words; the expression by a voice of mood.

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Wintercoat

We were lovers once long agoWalking through cold city streets like lovers doStopped inside a marketKissed behind a stallSomeone said you'd better move onIf you're not buying at all

Then I saw the winter coat hanging on the rackI thought about that winter coatHanging on my backSo you helped me try it onIt was just my sizeThen you bought that coat for meAfter haggling over the price

Now when it's chilly Up in these cold cold hillsI just put on my winter coatMy winter coatKeeps me warm

Years have come alongYears have goneSome friends have risenSome have moved onAnd my old winter coat stillHangs by my front doorHolding all the stories I don't remember anymore

And when it gets freezingUp in these cold cold hillsI just put on my winter coatMy winter coatKeeps me warm

My winter coatMy winter coat

My winter coatMy winter coat

1. What kind of journey does this song discuss?2. What prompted the beginning of this journey?3. What helped or hindered the progression of this journey?4. What did the author learn from this journey?5. Choose a quotation that encapsulates the message of ‘the journey’ in this song.

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To Her Door

They got married early, never had no moneyThen when he got laid off they really hit the skidsHe started up his drinking, then they started fightingHe took it pretty badly, she took both the kidsShe said: "I'm not standing by, to watch you slowly dieSo watch me walking, out the door"She said, "Shove it, Jack, I'm walking out the fucking door"

She went to her brother's, got a little bar workHe went to the Buttery, stayed about a yearThen he wrote a letter, said I want to see youShe thought he sounded better, she sent him up the fareHe was riding through the cane in the pouring rainOn Olympic to her door

He came in on a Sunday, every muscle achingWalking in slow motion like he'd just been hitDid they have a future? Would he know his children?Could he make a picture and get them all to fit?He was shaking in his seat riding through the streetsIn a silvertop to her door


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Before Too Long

Before too longThe one that you're lovingWill wish that he'd never met youBefore too longHe who is nothingWill suddenly come into view

So let the time keep rolling onIt's on my sideLonely nights will soon be goneHigh is the tide

Before too longWe'll be togetherAnd no-one will tear us apartBefore too longThe words will be spokenI know all the action by heart

As the night time follows dayI'm closing inEvery dog will have his dayAny dog can winShut the shade do no fear anymoreHere I come creeping round your back door

Before too longI'll be repeatingWhat's happened before in my mindBefore too longOver and overJust like a hammer inside

As the nighttime follows dayI'm closing inEvery dog will have his dayAny dog can winBefore too longBefore too long


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Deeper Water

On a crowded beach in a distant timeAt the height of summer see a boy of fiveAt the water's edge so nimble and freeJumping over the ripples looking way out to sea

Now a man comes up from amongst the throngTakes the young boy's hand and his hand is strongAnd the child feels safe, yeah the child feels braveAs he's carried in those arms up and over the waves

Deeper water, deeper water, deeper water, calling him on

Let's move forward now and the child's seventeenWith a girl in the back seat tugging at his jeansAnd she knows what she wants, she guides with her handAs a voice cries inside him - I'm a man, I'm a man!


Now the man meets a woman unlike all the restHe doesn't know it yet but he's out of his depthAnd he thinks he can run, it's a matter of prideBut he keeps coming back like a cork on the tide

Well the years hurry by and the woman loves the manThen one night in the dark she grabs hold of his handSays 'There, can you feel it kicking inside!'And the man gets a shiver right up and down his spine


So the clock moves around and the child is a joyBut Death doesn't care just who it destroysNow the woman gets sick, thins down to the boneShe says 'Where I'm going next, I'm going alone'

Deeper water, deeper water

On a distant beach lonely and wildAt a later time see a man and a childAnd the man takes the child up into his armsTakes her over the breakersTo where the water is calm

Deeper water, deeper water,Deeper water, calling them on

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Sweet Guy

In the morning we wreck the bed You bring me coffee black and boiling Then we start up again and the coffee goes cold I wake up drinking from your lips Kisses warm and tender And I’d give up the world just to see you smile

One thing I will never understand(It’s become my problem)And it’s something that’s right out of my hands(My hands are clean)What makes such a sweet guy turn so mean?

I went to town with a moody man A handsome Dr JekyllHe was right by my side turning into Mr HydeI ran for cover but I ran too slowI was stitched by strangersAnd they shooke their heads that someone could do the things you did

One thing I will never understand(It’s become my problem) And it’s something that’s right out of my hands(My hands are clean)What makes such a sweet guy turn so mean?

I must be mad, I must be crazyEveryone tells me soEvery day I see it comingNow I’m facing the wall, waiting for the blow

In the morning you kiss my headYou say it was anotherNow you’re down on your kneesBegging me to forgive you pleaseI wake up aching from your touchEvery muscle tenderThe I look in your eyes, the way you smileAnd I’m hypnotised

One thing I will never understand(It’s become my problem)And it’s something that’s right out of my hands(My hands are clean)What makes such a sweet guy turn so mean?

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Dumb Things

Welcome, strangers, to the showI'm the one who should be lying lowSaw the knives out, turned my backHeard the train coming, stayed out on the trackIn the middle, in the middle, in the middle of a dreamI lost my shirt, I pawned my ringsI've done all the dumb things

Caught the fever, heard the tuneThought I loved her, hung my heart on the moonStarted howling, made no senseThought my friends would rush to my defenceIn the middle, in the middle, in the middle of a dreamI lost my shirt, I pawned my ringsI've done all the dumb things

And I get all your good adviceIt doesn't stop me from going through these things twiceI see the knives out, I turn my backI hear the train coming, I stay right on that trackIn the middle, in the middle, in the middle of a dreamI lost my shirt, I pawned my ringsI've done all the dumb thingsI melted wax to fix my wingsI've done all the dumb thingsI threw my hat into the ringI've done all the dumb thingsI thought that I just had to singI've done all the dumb things


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Look So Fine, Feel So Low

(Paul Kelly, Maurice Frawley)

I've been seen on the streetWearing brand new clothesI guess I've landed on my feetI'm a lucky guy I suppose

She tells me that she loves meShe buys me thingsShe wants to take care of meAnd all I gotta do is sing sing sing sing

Well I look so fine but I feel so low

She takes me by the armShe takes me all aroundShe knows all her friends are talkingSaying look what our good girl's found

One thing she's got on youshe's so easy to impressWhen she asks me dumb questionsAll I gotta do is say yes yes yes yes

Yeah I look so fine but I feel so low


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Everything's Turning To White

Late on a Friday my husband went up to the mountains with three friendsThey took provisions and bottles of bourbon to last them all through the weekendOne hundred miles they drove just to fish in a streamAnd there's so much water so close to home

When they arrived it was cold and dark; they set up their camp quicklyWarmed up with whisky they walked to the river where the water flowed past darklyIn the moonlight they saw the body of a young girl floating face downAnd there's so much water so close to home

When he hold me now I'm pretendingI feel like I'm frozen insideAnd behind my eyes, my daily disguiseEverything's turning to whiteIt was too hard to tell how long she'd been dead, the river was that close to freezingBut one thing for sure, the girl hadn't died very well to judge from the bruisingThey stood there above her all thinking the same thoughts at the same timeThere's so much water so close to home

They carried her downstream from their fishing; between two rocks they gently wedged herAfter all they'd come so far, it was lateAnd the girl would keep; she was going nowhereThey stayed up there fishing for two daysThey reported it on Sunday when they came back downThere's so much water so close to home

When he holds me now I'm pretendingI feel like I'm frozen insideAnd behind my eyes, my daily disguiseEverything's turning to whiteThe newspapers said that the girl had been strangled to death and also molestedOn the day of the funeral the radio reported that a young man had been arrestedI went to the service a stranger; I drove past the lake out of townThere's so much water so close to home

When he holds me now I'm pretendingI feel like I'm frozen insideAnd behind my eyes, my daily disguiseEverything's turning to white

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From Little Things Big Things Grow

P. Kelly/K. Carmody

Gather round people let me tell you're a storyAn eight year long story of power and prideBritish Lord Vestey and Vincent LingiarriWere opposite men on opposite sides

Vestey was fat with money and muscleBeef was his business, broad was his doorVincent was lean and spoke very littleHe had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor

From little things big things growFrom little things big things grow

Gurindji were working for nothing but rationsWhere once they had gathered the wealth of the landDaily the pressure got tighter and tighterGurindju decided they must make a stand

They picked up their swags and started off walkingAt Wattie Creek they sat themselves downNow it don't sound like much but it sure got tongues talkingBack at the homestead and then in the town


Vestey man said I'll double your wagesSeven quid a week you'll have in your handVincent said uhuh we're not talking about wagesWe're sitting right here till we get our landVestey man roared and Vestey man thunderedYou don't stand the chance of a cinder in snowVince said if we fall others are rising


Then Vincent Lingiarri boarded an aeroplaneLanded in Sydney, big city of lightsAnd daily he went round softly speaking his storyTo all kinds of men from all walks of life

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And Vincent sat down with big politiciansThis affair they told him is a matter of stateLet us sort it out, your people are hungryVincent said no thanks, we know how to wait


Then Vincent Lingiarri returned in an aeroplaneBack to his country once more to sit downAnd he told his people let the stars keep on turningWe have friends in the south, in the cities and towns

Eight years went by, eight long years of waitingTill one day a tall stranger appeared in the landAnd he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremonyAnd through Vincent's fingers poured a handful of sand


That was the story of Vincent LingairriBut this is the story of something much moreHow power and privilege can not move a peopleWho know where they stand and stand in the law

From little things big things growFrom little things big things growFrom little things big things growFrom little things big things grow


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Pygmalion – Origins of the myth

Pygmalion derives its name from the famous story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and shameful lives of the women of his era, decides to live alone and unmarried. With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue more perfect than any living woman. The more he looks upon her, the more deeply he falls in love with her, until he wishes that she were more than a statue. This statue is Galatea. Lovesick, Pygmalion goes to the temple of the goddess Venus and prays that she give him a lover like his statue; Venus is touched by his love and brings Galatea to life. When Pygmalion returns from Venus' temple and kisses his statue, he is delighted to find that she is warm and soft to the touch--"The maiden felt the kisses, blushed and, lifting her timid eyes up to the light, saw the sky and her lover at the same time" (Frank Justus Miller, trans.).

Myths such as this are fine enough when studied through the lens of centuries and the buffer of translations and editions, but what happens when one tries to translate such an allegory into Victorian England? That is just what George Bernard Shaw does in his version of the Pygmalion myth. In doing so, he exposes the inadequacy of myth and of romance in several ways. For one, he deliberately twists the myth so that the play does not conclude as euphorically or conveniently, hanging instead in unconventional ambiguity. Next, he mires the story in the sordid and mundane whenever he gets a chance. Wherever he can, the characters are seen to be belaboured by the trivial details of life like napkins and neckties, and of how one is going to find a taxi on a rainy night. These noisome details keep the story grounded and decidedly less romantic. Finally, and most significantly, Shaw challenges the possibly insidious assumptions that come with the Pygmalion myth, forcing us to ask the following: Is the male artist the absolute and perfect being who has the power to create woman in the image of his desires? Is the woman necessarily the inferior subject who sees her lover as her sky? Can there only ever be sexual/romantic relations between a man and a woman? Does beauty reflect virtue? Does the artist love his creation, or merely the art that brought that creation into being? Famous for writing "talky" plays in which barely anything other than witty repartee takes centre stage (plays that the most prominent critics of his day called non-plays), Shaw finds in Pygmalion a way to turn the talk into action, by hinging the fairy tale outcome of the flower girl on precisely how she talks. In this way, he draws our attention to his own art, and to his ability to create, through the medium of speech, not only Pygmalion's Galatea, but Pygmalion himself. More powerful than Pygmalion, on top of building up his creations, Shaw can take them down as well by showing their faults and foibles. In this way, it is the playwright alone, and not some divine will, who breathes life into his characters. While Ovid's Pygmalion may be said to have idolised his Galatea, Shaw's relentless and humorous honesty humanises these archetypes, and in the process brings drama and art itself to a more contemporarily relevant and human level.

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Pygmalion - The Background of George Bernard Shaw

Born in Dublin in 1856 to a middle-class Protestant family bearing pretensions to nobility (Shaw's embarrassing alcoholic father claimed to be descended from Macduff, the slayer of Macbeth), George Bernard Shaw grew to become what some consider the second greatest English playwright, behind only Shakespeare. Others most certainly disagree with such an assessment, but few question Shaw's immense talent or the plays that talent produced. Shaw died at the age of 94, a hypochondriac, socialist, anti-vaccinationist, semi-feminist (although some claim misogynist) vegetarian who believed in the Life Force and only wore wool. He left behind him a truly massive corpus of work including about 60 plays, 5 novels, 3 volumes of music criticism, 4 volumes of dance and theatrical criticism, and heaps of social commentary, political theory, and voluminous correspondence. And this list does not include the opinions that Shaw could always be counted on to hold about any topic, and which this flamboyant public figure was always most willing to share. Shaw's most lasting contribution is no doubt his plays, and it has been said that "a day never passes without a performance of some Shaw play being given somewhere in the world." One of Shaw's greatest contributions as a modern dramatist is in establishing drama as serious literature, negotiating publication deals for his highly popular plays so as to convince the public that the play was no less important than the novel. In that way, he created the conditions for later playwrights to write seriously for the theatre. Of all of Shaw's plays, Pygmalion is without the doubt the most beloved and popularly received, if not the most significant in literary terms. Several film versions have been made of the play, and it has even been adapted into a musical. In fact, writing the screenplay for the film version of 1938 helped Shaw to become the first and only man ever to win the much coveted Double: the Nobel Prize for literature and an Academy Award. Shaw wrote the part of Eliza in Pygmalion for the famous actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, with whom Shaw was having a prominent affair at the time that had set all of London abuzz. The aborted romance between Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle reflects Shaw's own love life, which was always peppered with enamoured and beautiful women, with whom he flirted outrageously but with whom he almost never had any further relations. For example, he had a long marriage to Charlotte Payne-Townsend in which it is well known that he never touched her once. The fact that Shaw was quietly a member of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, an organisation whose core members were young men agitating for homosexual liberation, might or might not inform the way that Higgins would rather focus his passions on literature or science than on women. That Higgins was a representation of Pygmalion, the character from the famous story of Ovid's Metamorphoses who is the very embodiment of male love for the female form, makes Higgins sexual disinterest all the more compelling. Shaw is too consummate a performer and too smooth in his self- presentation for us to neatly dissect his sexual background; these lean biographical facts, however, do support the belief that Shaw would have an interest in exploding the typical structures of standard fairy tales.

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Pygmalion - Summary

Two old gentlemen meet in the rain one night at Covent Garden. Professor Higgins is a scientist of phonetics, and Colonel Pickering is a linguist of Indian dialects. The first bets the other that he can, with his knowledge of phonetics, convince high London society that, in a matter of months, he will be able to transform the cockney speaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess. The next morning, the girl appears at his laboratory on Wimpole Street to ask for speech lessons, offering to pay a shilling, so that she may speak properly enough to work in a flower shop. Higgins makes merciless fun of her, but is seduced by the idea of working his magic on her. Pickering goads him on by agreeing to cover the costs of the experiment if Higgins can pass Eliza off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. The challenge is taken, and Higgins starts by having his housekeeper bathe Eliza and give her new clothes. Then Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle comes to demand the return of his daughter, though his real intention is to hit Higgins up for some money. The professor, amused by Doolittle's unusual rhetoric, gives him five pounds. On his way out, the dustman fails to recognize the now clean, pretty flower girl as his daughter.

For a number of months, Higgins trains Eliza to speak properly. Two trials for Eliza follow. The first occurs at Higgins' mother's home, where Eliza is introduced to the Eynsford Hills, a trio of mother, daughter, and son. The son Freddy is very attracted to her, and further taken with what he thinks is her affected "small talk" when she slips into cockney. Mrs. Higgins worries that the experiment will lead to problems once it is ended, but Higgins and Pickering are too absorbed in their game to take heed. A second trial, which takes place some months later at an ambassador's party (and which is not actually staged), is a resounding success. The wager is definitely won, but Higgins and Pickering are now bored with the project, which causes Eliza to be hurt. She throws Higgins' slippers at him in a rage because she does not know what is to become of her, thereby bewildering him. He suggests she marry somebody. She returns him the hired jewellery, and he accuses her of ingratitude. The following morning, Higgins rushes to his mother, in a panic because Eliza has run away. On his tail is Eliza's father, now unhappily rich from the trust of a deceased millionaire who took to heart Higgins' recommendation that Doolittle was England's "most original moralist." Mrs. Higgins, who has been hiding Eliza upstairs all along, chides the two of them for playing with the girl's affections. When she enters, Eliza thanks Pickering for always treating her like a lady, but threatens Higgins that she will go work with his rival phonetician, Nepommuck. The outraged Higgins cannot help but start to admire her. As Eliza leaves for her father's wedding, Higgins shouts out a few errands for her to run, assuming that she will return to him at Wimpole Street. Eliza, who has a lovelorn sweetheart in Freddy, and the wherewithal to pass as a duchess, never makes it clear whether she will or not.

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PYGMALION (Cast)

Italics – teacherDaughter (Clara)

Mother (Mrs Eynsford Hill)

Bystander/bystander generally, etc.FreddyFlower Girl (Liza, Eliza Doolittle)

Gentleman (Pickering, Colonel Pickering)

Note Taker (Higgins, Professor Henry Higgins)

TaximanMrs PearceDoolittle (Alfred Doolittle)

Mrs HigginsThe ParlourmaidWhiskersNepommuckFootman (First, Second, etc.)

Host/HostessConstable (First and Second)

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Pygmalion - Characters

Professor Henry Higgins - Henry Higgins is a professor of phonetics who plays Pygmalion to Eliza Doolittle's Galatea. He is the author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet, believes in concepts like visible speech, and uses all manner of recording and photographic material to document his phonetic subjects, reducing people and their dialects into what he sees as readily understandable units. He is an unconventional man, who goes in the opposite direction from the rest of society in most matters. Indeed, he is impatient with high society, forgetful in his public graces, and poorly considerate of normal social niceties--the only reason the world has not turned against him is because he is at heart a good and harmless man. His biggest fault is that he can be a bully.

Eliza Doolittle - "She is not at all a romantic figure." So is she introduced in Act I. Everything about Eliza Doolittle seems to defy any conventional notions we might have about the romantic heroine. When she is transformed from a sassy, smart-mouthed kerbstone flower girl with deplorable English, to a (still sassy) regal figure fit to consort with nobility, it has less to do with her innate qualities as a heroine than with the fairy-tale aspect of the transformation myth itself. In other words, the character of Eliza Doolittle comes across as being much more instrumental than fundamental. The real (re-)making of Eliza Doolittle happens after the ambassador's party, when she decides to make a statement for her own dignity against Higgins' insensitive treatment. This is when she becomes, not a duchess, but an independent woman; and this explains why Higgins begins to see Eliza not as a mill around his neck but as a creature worthy of his admiration. Colonel Pickering - Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit, is a match for Higgins (although somewhat less obsessive) in his passion for phonetics. But where Higgins is a boorish, careless bully, Pickering is always considerate and a genuinely gentleman. He says little of note in the play, and appears most of all to be a civilized foil to Higgins' barefoot, absentminded crazy professor. He helps in the Eliza Doolittle experiment by making a wager of it, saying he will cover the costs of the experiment if Higgins does indeed make a convincing duchess of her. However, while Higgins only manages to teach Eliza pronunciations, it is Pickering's thoughtful treatment towards Eliza that teaches her to respect herself. Alfred Doolittle - Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's father, an elderly but vigorous dustman who has had at least six wives and who "seems equally free from fear and conscience." When he learns that his daughter has entered the home of Henry Higgins, he immediately pursues to see if he can get some money out of the circumstance. His unique brand of rhetoric, an unembarrassed, unhypocritical advocation of drink and pleasure (at other people's expense), is amusing to Higgins. Through Higgins' joking recommendation, Doolittle becomes a richly endowed lecturer to a moral reform society, transforming him from lowly dustman to a picture of middle class morality--he becomes miserable. Throughout, Alfred is a scoundrel who is willing to sell his daughter to make a few pounds, but he is one of the few unaffected characters in the play, unmasked by appearance or language. Though scandalous, his speeches are honest. At points, it even seems that he might be Shaw's voice piece of social criticism (Alfred's proletariat status, given Shaw's socialist leanings, makes the prospect all the more likely). Mrs. Higgins - Professor Higgins' mother, Mrs. Higgins is a stately lady in her sixties who sees the Eliza Doolittle experiment as idiocy, and Higgins and Pickering as senseless children. She is the first and only character to have any qualms about the whole affair. When her worries prove true, it is to her that all the characters turn. Because no woman can match up to his mother, Higgins claims, he has no interest in dallying with them. To observe the mother of Pygmalion (Higgins), who completely understands all of his failings and inadequacies, is a good contrast to the mythic proportions to which Higgins builds himself in his self-estimations as a scientist of phonetics and a creator of duchesses. Freddy Eynsford Hill - Higgins' surmise that Freddy is a fool is probably accurate. In the opening scene he is a spineless and resourceless lackey to his mother and sister. Later, he is comically bowled over by Eliza, the half-baked duchess who still speaks cockney. He becomes lovesick for Eliza, and courts her with letters. At the play's close, Freddy serves as a young, viable marriage option for Eliza, making the possible path she will follow unclear to the reader.

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Pygmalion - Study Questions

In his preface to the play, Shaw writes that the figure of Henry Higgins is partly based on Alexander Melville Bell, the inventor of Visible Speech. How does Shaw utilise this idea of "Visible Speech"? Is it an adequate concept to use to approach people? Through the concept of "Visible Speech," Shaw hits on the two aspects of theater that can make the greatest impression on an audience: sight and sound. Therefore, the transformation of Eliza Doolittle is most marked and obvious on these two scales. In regard to both these senses, Pygmalion stays faithful to the most clichéd formula of the standard rags-to-riches stories, in that the heroine changes drastically in the most external ways. However, while Eliza certainly changes in these blatant external ways, these changes serve as a mask for a more fundamental development of self-respect that Eliza undergoes. Because Higgins only ever charts "Visible Speech," it makes him liable to forget that there are other aspects to human beings that can also grow. But in the possible loss that Higgins faces in the final scene, and in is inability to recognize that loss as a possibility at all, the play makes certain that its audience sees the tension between internal and external change, and that sight and sound do not become measures of virtue, personality, or internal worth.

It has been said that Pygmalion is not a play about turning a flower girl into a duchess, but one about turning a woman into a human being. Do you agree? When Eliza Doolittle threatens Higgins that she will take his phonetic findings to his rival in order to support herself, art imitates life, and Shaw's literature echoes a significant episode from his own youth. As a boy, Shaw's mother was an accomplished singer who dedicated herself to the perfection of "The Method," her teacher George Vandeleur Lee's yoga-like approach to voice training. She went so far as to leave her husband to follow her teacher to London. However, upon realizing that Lee was concerned only about his appearances and the status of his street address, she left him and brought up her daughters by setting up shop herself, teaching "The Method" as if it were her own. Shaw could not have helped but be impressed and influenced by this courageous move on the part of his mother to strike out on her own and to create an independent life for herself. Thus, though Pygmalion shows a lot of sympathy for the flower girl who wants a higher station in life, it is even more concerned with the unloved, neglected woman who decides to make herself heard once and for all. The plays determination to have Eliza grow into a full human being with her own mind and will also explains why the play makes seemingly inexplicable structural moves like leaving out the climax, and carrying on for a further two acts after the climax. In other words, the superficial climax is not the real climax at all, and Shaw's project is deeper than that of a fairy godmother. What is the Pygmalion myth? In what significant ways, and with what effect, has Shaw transformed that myth in his play? The Pygmalion myth comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Pygmalion is a sculptor who creates a sculpture of a woman so perfectly formed that he falls in love with her. Aphrodite is moved by his love and touches the statue to life so that she becomes Galatea, and the sculptor can experience live bliss with his own creation. While Shaw maintains the skeletal structure of the fantasy in which a gifted male fashions a woman out of lifeless raw material into a worthy partner for himself, Shaw does not allow the male to fall in love with his creation. Right to the last act, Higgins is still quarrelsome and derisive in his interaction with Eliza, and does not even think of her as an object of romantic interest. Shaw goes on to undo the myth by injecting the play with other Pygmalion figures like Mrs. Pearce and Pickering, and to suggest that the primary Pygmalion himself is incomplete, and not ideal himself. In transforming the Pygmalion myth in such a way, Shaw calls into question the ideal status afforded to the artist, and further exposes the inadequacies of myths and romances that overlook the mundane, human aspects of life.

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Pygmalion – Questions for student discussion

1. "I care for life, for humanity; and you are a part of it that has come my way and been built into my house. What more can you or anyone ask?" Henry Higgins has this to say to Eliza when she complains that he does not care for anybody and threatens to leave him. How does the professor of phonetics treat the people in his life? Can one ask for more? 2. Describe the primary ways in which Eliza Doolittle changes in the course of the play. Which is the most important transformation, and what clues does Shaw give us to indicate this? 3. While Eliza Doolittle is being remade, Victorian society itself can be said to be unmade. How does Shaw reveal the pruderies, hypocrisies, and inconsistencies of this higher society to which the kerbstone flower girl aspires? Do his sympathies lie with the lower or upper classes? 4. "The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another." It is no small coincidence that the author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet is the same man to blur social distinctions, thereby suggesting that social standing is a matter of nurture, not nature. Examine carefully Higgins' attitude towards his fellow men. Can this be taken as an admirable brand of socialism? Or does he fail as a compassionate being in his absolutism? 5. Is "A Romance in Five Acts" an accurate description of the play Pygmalion? How does the play conform (or not) to the traditional form of a romance (for example: boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy meets girl's father/evil twin/ex-fiance, boy learns to love girl despite everything, boy and girl live happily ever after...)? What do you think Shaw is trying to achieve in highlighting the concept of the romance in the title? (Hint: You might want to look closely at the written sequel to the play, in which Shaw gives some very strong opinions about romances.) 6. If you were to create a sixth act to Pygmalion, who would Eliza marry? Or does she marry at all? Use the lines and behavior of the characters throughout the first five acts to support the outcome of your finale. 7. If possible, try to watch the film version of Pygmalion (1938, screenplay by Shaw), and even the Audrey Hepburn film of the musical My Fair Lady (1956). Consider what has been changed, removed, or enhanced in the move from the stage to the screen, and from a talking play to a musical. What does each subsequent adaptation reveal about popular expectations of a romance, versus the original intentions of the playwright? In your opinion, which of these works is the best? Why?

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Assessment

There are two pieces of assessment that you need to complete for this outcome. Your piece of writing should be as long as it needs to be to complete the task.

For each piece of assessment you are required to fill out A Statement of Explanation Sheet. This sheet is included in the following pages and will be photocopied for you to submit with your work.

Piece One: Personal Writingo Write about an event in your life that led you to take a ‘journey’. Your piece

should be a first person, reflective narrative (ie written in the first person and past tense).

o Due: ____________________________

Piece Two: Expository Writing

“The journey is more important than the destination”

o Due: ____________________________

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PERFORMANCE DESCRIPTORSYEAR 11 ENGLISH

Context SAC- The JourneyAREA OF STUDY - Creating and Presenting

OUTCOME 2 – Create and present texts taking account of audience, purpose and contextMARK RANGE

DESCRIPTOR: typical performance in each range HIGH MED LOW N/S

A – A+ Skilful shaping of ideas, arguments and language appropriate to the chosen form, audience, purpose and context.

Sophisticated understanding of complex ideas and/or arguments relevant to the chosen Context and presented in selected text/s; a demonstrated ability to draw on and develop these in the creation of own text/s.

Highly expressive, fluent and coherent writing. Use of appropriate metalanguage to present an insightful, highly

expressive and coherent written explanation of personal authorial choices.

B – B+ Considered use of ideas, arguments and language appropriate to the chosen form, audience, purpose and context.

Thorough understanding of ideas and/or arguments relevant to the chosen Context and presented in selected text/s; a demonstrated ability to draw purposefully on these in the creation of own text/s.

Expressive, fluent and coherent writing. Use of appropriate metalanguage to present a considered,

expressive and coherent written explanation of personal authorial choices.

C – C+ Suitable use of ideas, arguments and language appropriate to the chosen form, audience, purpose and context.

Clear understanding of basic ideas and/or arguments relevant to the chosen Context and presented in selected texts; a demonstrated ability to draw on these to some degree in the creation of own text/s.

Generally expressive, fluent and coherent writing. Use of metalanguage to present a clear, coherent and general

explanation of personal authorial choices.D – D+ Use of ideas, arguments and language generally appropriate to the

chosen form, audience, purpose and context. Some understanding of basic ideas and/or arguments relevant to

the chosen Context and presented in selected texts; some evidence of an ability to draw on these in the creation of own text/s.

Clear expression of ideas in writing. Use of limited metalanguage to present a general explanation of

personal authorial choices.E – E+ Little evidence of an ability to use ideas, arguments and language

appropriate to the chosen form, audience, purpose and context. Limited understanding of basic ideas and/or arguments relevant to

the chosen Context and presented in selected texts; little evidence of an ability to draw on these in the creation of own text/s.

Simple expression of ideas in writing. Little use of metalanguage and minimal discussion of authorial

choices.

MARK COMMENT

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Documents

Journey Sem1 BOOKLET - Wikispacesyear11vce-english.wikispaces.com/file/view/JourneyBoo… · Web viewIt can be anything that you connect with the word ‘journey’. ... working